CQU's Smart Returns Fellowships Scheme visiting scholar Professor Douglas Rutledge this week gave a presentation to a St George school on life after high school, university, the value of a science education and chemistry in application.

The visitor was in St George this week for a table grape conference.

Last week, he spoke about the chemistry of food preparation to two classes of Year 11 chemistry students at Rockhampton's Emmaus College.

The Smart Returns scheme aims to bring successful Queensland expatriates ‘back home’ in order to foster relationships between overseas institutions and local communities.

Although the Professor is currently living in France, he was born in Brisbane and has undergraduate qualifications from the University of Sydney, and an MSc and PhD from the University of Paris.

The analytical chemist has particular interests in the development of rapid methods for the quality control of agri-food products and the development of new applications of chemometrics in analytical chemistry.

"During my visit, I will be doing research into the application of spectroscopic methods in the determination of food quality, which is a key project within the Primary Industries Research Centre at CQU," Professor Rutledge said.